25
SWAN SONG
“The timing of death, like the ending of a story, Gives a changed meaning to what preceded it.”
Mary Catherine Bateson
The asp bared its fangs and struck. Thorn stiffened, adrenaline pumping through his body, setting all his nerves on high alert. An instinctual response. He reminded himself that the clear panel separating him from his death wouldn’t slide open to allow the five serpents from their lower compartment into the glass case surrounding him, unless Erik was here to activate it.
Another asp struck, leaving behind droplets of clear, deadly venom on the glass surface beneath him. A pheromone filtering into their section of the case had provoked the reptiles to a raging state. Their auras were bright, frenzied. Thorn’s feet shifted, but he suppressed the urge to move his hands. It wouldn’t do any good to try with the iron bands holding him pinned to the wall.
“You almost had it that time.” Thorn lifted his shoulder as high as it could go to give Diable leverage. He knew Rune had sent him; she was his guardian angel. If she hadn’t, he’d be alone and useless, contemplating worst-case scenarios for the masquerade going on hundreds of feet above him and unable to do anything constructive to help.
Now, he could possibly climb out and make a difference.
The cat’s body stretched, hind feet settled on Thorn’s right shoulder while one front foot planked his forearm and the other dug with extended claws at the keyhole in the locking mechanism.
Thorn’s glass case was flush to the wall and a few feet from the operating table, to give him a bird’s-eye view of Rune’s torment, and her a bird’s-eye view of his fatal predicament. His stomach knotted. Erik had knocked him out with gas before he left. A tribute to his deviant sense of humor, since he’d been wearing a gas mask himself. When Thorn roused, he was strung up in only his scrubs, feet stripped of his boots, although Erik left him his socks. That, too, was a strategy to play on Rune’s sentimentalities.
All along, this had been his plan. To use Thorn as the bait that would convince her to give up her voice. That’s why he’d allowed Thorn to woo the music in her, to bond with her. She might’ve chosen Thorn’s life over the music even before they had the unity ritual. But now, it would be physically impossible for her to let him die. By trying to protect her, Thorn had damned her.
But there were three things Erik hadn’t counted on: One, he was walking into a trap himself; two, he’d left Thorn within reach of the lever that would release the dams and flood the apartment—Erik’s very own trap. It was on the wall, level with Thorn’s head, no more than two feet away. And since the glass case only came to his chest, if he could free his right arm, he could stretch far enough to trigger the self-destruction sequence. And three, although the cord between twin flames would never snap, it could be severed if one of them died. Thorn was willing to meet a drowning death, for Rune’s freedom.
Erik had lost sight of that detail, since he’d never shared the ritual with Christine. Since she left him forever after she found out he didn’t bury their daughter at all . . . after she wandered into the lab a few nights postbirth, and saw her half-dead, premature infant being treated like a science experiment. Erik had been so desperate to keep their child alive he never considered he might lose the love of his life in the process.
Thorn averted his gaze from the cryogenic chamber and its pulsing yellow light on the other side of the room. Even now, he couldn’t look at her perfect, tiny form. The nameless baby that would’ve been his sister. He hated what destroying this lab would do to her. What it would do to Erik. Total obliteration of his dream for a family and unconditional love.
Why? Why could Erik never see he already had that? It was the very reason Thorn had looked away from the depravity for so long, to bring some measure of happiness to his father’s broken soul. Had Rune’s arrival here not forced Thorn’s eyes open, who knows what he might’ve done . . .
If Rune could manage the same awakening for Erik, she could sway his dark side and reach his humanity. She had the power. As long as nothing or no one intervened.
The ribbon tattoo beneath Thorn’s iron cuff stung at just the thought of her, alluding that something had gone wrong. He’d do anything to be up there with her now.
Clenching his teeth against the cat’s sharp barbs digging into his bicep, Thorn kept his arm still. Diable had already left trails of bleeding claw marks across his left cheek, neck, and shoulder, having leaped from one of the wooden shelves on the wall to get to him. It had been the only way for contact, with the glass between them.
While Diable shifted positions, still digging at the keyhole, Thorn’s head sagged, trying to ease the tension from his neck. Hearing a small click in the iron band, he looked up. Before he could test his wrist, the elevator motor rattled to life and Ange trumpeted from within.
Ears back, Diable dropped to the ground and scrambled for a hiding spot. His jingles silenced upon finding one.
Thorn’s pulse raced as he waited, hoping against all hope that Erik was coming to confess the error of his ways. The minute the gated door opened, his heart fell, seeing Rune unconscious in Erik’s arms. This was no longer his father. This was the Phantom—in all his dark and depraved glory. Every spark of light had been snuffed out.
The Phantom’s yellow gaze met Thorn’s as he passed him to lay her on the table. Ange tottered behind, grunting, obviously vexed by their guest’s motionless state.
Rune moaned without opening her eyes—toes spotted with dried blood; hair bedraggled; clothes dusty, rumpled, and scented with smoke. She’d been through a hell of a fight. That could only mean one thing: the Phantom hadn’t fallen for their ploy, he held Rune inside a musical thrall, and the opera house was burning down.
Thorn took one look at her tied wrists, and his entire frame shifted and compacted—muscle and bones bracing together like tectonic plates against the explosion he felt inside of himself, a final detonation that killed every last ounce of the compassion he’d been struggling with for years. No more hesitation. The moment the opportunity presented itself, he would destroy this lair and everything in it. He’d sooner see their home demolished and lives ended than Rune pay the price for their deviant choices.
The cuff on his right wrist felt looser. Diable had managed to unlock it. With just one tug, it would pop open. But his left hand was still locked in place; he couldn’t pull the lever until Rune was able to swim out of here herself.
The Phantom turned his back and lifted off the bulky gas mask, replacing it with a flesh-colored one that stopped at the bottom of his upper lip. It was always his choice for meticulous work: form- fitted with larger eye holes, leaving him unhindered while still covered. He mumbled under his breath like a madman as he shucked off his jacket onto the floor.
Curious if the key to the handcuffs might be inside one of the pockets, Thorn sent a silent command to Diable to check it out. The cat slinked from his hiding spot, not even ringing one bell, and wound around the edges of the room toward the jacket. Ange’s long neck arched gracefully as she watched her feline friend, considering whether it was a game she wanted to play.
“What have you done, Erik?” Thorn tossed out the question as a diversion.
“Christine will forgive me. She has to. I’m giving her voice to our daughter.” Erik replaced his leather gloves with latex, snapping them tight over quaking hands.
Thorn had never seen Erik so shaken. His gaze fell to Rune’s sleeping face—hope sparking anew. It had worked. She’d chiseled away enough of the Phantom’s protective shell to give Thorn a tender spot to gnaw on.
“She won’t forgive you,” Thorn baited, ignoring how his arm muscles were aching from their position. “You went to her on her death bed and swore you’d abandoned this madness. You sang with her in a final tribute to your child who was at last released to the dirt. Christine can’t forgive you, unless you follow through. Unless you make it true.”
Waddling around Erik’s feet, Ange fluttered
up to the table and perched on Rune’s stomach where her hands were tied. The swan nudged the ropes with her bill and honked at Erik, scolding.
“Enough from the both of you.” Erik’s shaky fingers sorted through scalpels and instruments, arranging preferences on a silver tray with wheels. He also added the needle threaded with Katarina’s hair—planning to stitch the baby’s incision with Nilsson DNA, his own superstitious precaution. “Rune offered her consent, on the way here . . . upon hearing your plight. So no more guilt. She will live, just as Jippetto did.”
Thorn watched his father tremble. Rune would never survive the surgery under such quavering hands. Erik would slice her carotid artery and she’d bleed to death.
“She has this one small sacrifice to make, then you can be together,” Erik continued. “So ironic.” His gaze snagged Thorn’s with otherworldly potency. “I never expected to find you first. One-half of the flamme jumelle.”
Thorn’s jaw dropped. “What? How—”
“Adella told me, before either of you were even born. That since Christine and I were twin flames who never ritually united, Christine’s soul would be divided. A boy and a girl. You proved you were the other half when you followed me into the depths of that catacomb all those years ago. You had her fire. And when you touched my hand and stole away my energy, I felt her. I knew then that the prediction would come true: Unite the souls and the song will be reborn. A willing sacrifice to end all pain. All I had to do was find the girl, and make it so she could never say no.”
Thorn almost choked on the bile climbing his throat. Not once had Erik mentioned twin souls as part of the foretelling. That’s why he brought Thorn home with him as a child, even after his voice was taken away. That’s why he gave him the violin after Rune’s grandmother left it in box five. It was to connect Thorn to Rune early enough in their lives to make all of this inevitability come about on Erik’s timetable. He had known they were destined to be together even before Thorn did. And he arranged to make it happen here in this place, on this night.
“You . . .” Thorn’s voice was nothing more than a gritty moan, his eyes stinging with angry tears.
“Sometimes fate needs a little push.” Erik turned on the transfer machine. Lights flashed to life and reflected along the walls in time with a barrage of metallic clicks. “I’ve learned not to trust the universe to get things right on its own.” He resituated his mask, underscoring the statement. He wheeled the tray over to the opposite side of the operating table, facing Thorn with his patient between them. “Now, here we are on All Hallows’ Eve, the night of liminality. The four of us together . . . and Christine’s music will live again.”
“Are you sure?” Thorn asked, composing himself. The snakes under his feet had grown more agitated, striking at the glass with vicious tenacity. Thorn absorbed their combined life-force, sipping it through his feet. A pull of energy so minute, it felt like needles prickling his skin, so subtle Erik wouldn’t notice. Thorn siphoned the energized pulses to Rune through their shared imprints. A fiery sensation ignited along the coils of his wrist, real enough to heat the iron clamped over his skin. Rune’s coils responded, and a threadlike trail of smoke rose from the ropes binding her, burning away the fibers . . .
Ange stretched, spreading her wings wide across Rune’s body, hiding the phenomenon.
“What do you mean, am I sure?” Oblivious, Erik planted one hand on the edge of the steel table to steady it, and leaned across Rune, his shadow creeping over the skin bared above the bodice of her white dress. In his other quivering hand, he held a scalpel, studying her throat intently. “I heard her voice tonight. It was—”
“Seraphic?” Thorn offered, biting back a surge of panic. Rune’s long, dark lashes fluttered, then the eye closest to him opened a slit, peering his direction. She was awake and aware, biding her time, listening. Good girl. Don’t move until he turns his back to you.
“Yes, seraphic. Precisely.” Erik pulled down the overhead bulb to spotlight Rune’s head. He tilted his chin and laid the metal flat to her neck, planning the incision, though his hand still jittered. “I can’t seem to remember. Where is it you make the first cu—?”
“Haven’t you considered,” Thorn interrupted upon seeing Rune grow tense—a miniscule twitch of her cheekbones that only he would catch. “That the prediction’s already been fulfilled? And that you’re the one who has to make the sacrifice for us all to be at peace?”
Erik drew back, glaring at him. Scalpel in hand, he walked around the table to Thorn’s side, his back to Rune. Her face muscles relaxed.
“How do you mean?” Erik asked, his lovely, menacing voice more of a dare than a question.
“My and Rune’s souls are united, as you know.” Thorn held his gaze, catching Ange’s movement in his peripheral view. She fluttered to the floor with Rune’s frayed and scorched ropes in her bill and waddled into a corner, out of Erik’s range. “The music lives in her, and together we tamed it. Now, Christine’s voice thrives in Rune. She can use it and grow it, and glorify it. But were you to take it out and put it in a—”
“Your sister is not a corpse!” Erik lifted the scalpel to Thorn’s throat from the other side of the glass, his hand quaking. Thorn stretched his neck, felt the twitching indention at his tendon—skin still intact, but cold from the metal bite. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple rolled under the pressure of the blade. Rune had managed to sit up, a little unsteady, but cognizant enough to escape.
Thorn kept his father’s attention on him, baiting him again. “There’s no guarantee the incubator you’ve made will grow her a pair of lungs. This is all an idealistic design that’s never been tested. You could be killing Christine’s essence forev—”
“Silence!” Erik seethed, accidentally cutting Thorn’s neck in his rage. Thorn felt the drizzle of blood. It was only superficial, but it stung far deeper than his skin.
Eyes widening behind his mask, Erik stepped back and dropped the scalpel to the floor with a metallic ping. “I’m sorry.” The apology seemed strange—so vague and hollow—considering he had Thorn standing over a nest of asps. Erik drew a handkerchief from his pocket and reached over the glass to blot Thorn’s neck with a gentle hand. “I’m so sorry, my son.”
“I’ve never been your son. I was just a means to an end.”
“No, I grew to love you.” Erik squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his sunken forehead to the glass case inches from Thorn’s chest. “I do love you.”
Rune dropped to the floor on the other side of the table while Ange fluttered her wings to camouflage the sound of rustling clothes. Gripping the table for balance, Rune turned tear-sparkling eyes to Thorn, an unspoken inquiry for how she could help. He shook his head. Erik was too unstable, fluctuating between the monster and the man.
“You and I,” Erik moaned, hands gripping the glass’s edge, eyes still closed. “We have our family together at last. Please tell me you can see that, as she never could . . .”
“Yes,” Thorn answered, dismal and dark. “I see it. We’ll live as a family, you and I. Or we’ll die as a family, the three of us.” He yanked his right wrist free of the loosened cuff and slammed down the lever. “You choose. That’s the sacrifice.” The roar of gushing water tumbled upstairs in the apartment, instantaneous.
Erik’s head popped up. His mouth gaped at the bottom of his mask. Horrified perception crept across his bright eyes, hazing them like storm clouds, as water flooded in from the elevator chamber and filled the cellar, scented of fish, mud, and algae. Within seconds it rose to Erik’s knees and Rune’s thighs.
With an agonized cry, Erik spun, wallowing toward the pulsing glow of the cryogenic chamber. When he reached the glass case, he wrestled with cords and tubes, wailing as he fought to free the tiny body.
“Etalon . . .” Rune’s voice, little more than a squeak across the room beneath the thunder of water.
“Go now,” Thorn insisted. “Diable will show you the way. It’s irreversible. There are only forty se
conds left.”
The water pulled at her white dress, rising up to her neck. “No,” she whispered. “I won’t leave you!” She stood there, stubborn even while her aura was desperate, a thousand emotions in her teary eyes.
Her heartache ripped through his own heart, leaving his tongue soured with the flavor of hopelessness. Thorn tugged at his left wrist still clamped to the wall as water started sloshing into his glass case, upsetting the snakes under his feet. “I’ll find a way out.” A lie. The only one who could save him was mourning the child he never even had, oblivious to the one he did—a cruel truth that bled like a gaping wound in the core of his being. “Your friends, your aunt . . . they need you.”
Rune’s delicate features shifted to pained resolution. Diable paddled atop the water, spinning circles around her. Sobbing, she gave Thorn one final, imploring glance and dove in—braving her fear of water and disappearing with the cat into the passage that led to the chapel.
The first place he touched her face . . . and the last place she would see his.
26
LEGENDS
“Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.”
Helen Hayes
After Diable and I climbed free from the airtight chamber that opened into the baptismal, the rest of Halloween night played out in agonized slow motion. I stumbled upon Etalon’s suitcase in the chapel and opened it . . . I cried over the violin, fairy tale book, and clothes inside. But when I found the half-masks, perfect copies of his beautiful face, I broke down completely. Then I heard sirens and smelled smoke, and remembered the other side of my life.